


Most in the Summertime

by melodiousb



Series: This is the ballad of anticipation [5]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Established Relationship, M/M, New York Rangers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 20:50:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4934818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodiousb/pseuds/melodiousb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't mean to bring up the future. Marty obviously doesn't want to talk about it, and they have plenty of time before either of them needs to make any decisions. Before they have any decisions to make, even. But then Marty dries his hair with a towel, fluffing it up like feathers on a baby bird, and Brad doesn't know how to contain what he feels, so he blurts out, "you know, I'll go anywhere with you, if you ask me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Most in the Summertime

**Author's Note:**

> This writing of this spanned almost exactly the time it covers. I started writing it the night the Blackhawks won the cup. Probably no one will be as entertained by that as I am.
> 
> Thanks to DistortedDaytime for looking this over once I was done with it, and to hlundqvists and ForFighting for letting me bounce stuff off them at various points in the process.

It’s not that he forgets about Marty, exactly. He doesn’t think he’d know how. But there’s so much going on, and there’s so much alcohol, and everyone else is right here where Brad can look at them and hug them and not have to string a coherent sentence together. Marty didn’t want to come—not here or to Tampa—and Brad can’t blame him for that at all, couldn’t muster up a particle of resentment when he’d tried.

So he doesn’t forget, but he doesn’t talk to Marty, either. There’s no time, and everywhere is too crowded and too loud, and the few times Brad has a spare moment to look at his phone, he gets distracted by all the texts and voicemails. He doesn’t even see Marty’s text until the next evening—just, “love you. Knew you could do it”—and he spends too long smiling down at his phone, gets interrupted before he has a chance to reply.

It was like this last time, too. Brad remembers feeling detached from the rest of the world, moving at a different pace in a separate timeline, thinking that what he was feeling was so big that when he tried to slot himself back into his usual place in the world, he wouldn’t fit. But Marty had been with him then, they’d hung onto each other through all the celebrations, anchored to each other when they weren’t anchored to anything else.

He remembers Marty grabbing his hand at one point, and trying to figure out from the date on his watch what day of the week it was. Brad’s not wearing a watch now, but he’s also older and slower, and he gets tired. So he does know what day it is when he lets himself into his apartment, but if he needs to count higher than two he’s going to need to sleep for about forty hours straight. He kicks his shoes off and goes into the kitchen, where he fills a glass of water at the sink, drinks it, refills it, drinks again. He’s mostly sober now, but it can’t hurt.

If there’s anything else he has to do, it can wait. He unbuttons his shirt and drapes it over a chair as he heads for the bedroom, where he’s planning on collapsing face-first onto the bed and doing whatever comes halfway between falling asleep and passing out. Except that Marty is there, leaning against the headboard, dressed in a button-down and slacks, a book in his lap. 

“Marty,” he says, and stares. Marty’s wearing his glasses. His bare ankles are crossed. The book is in French.

Marty smiles up at him—barely a smile, a quirk of the lips and a softening around the eyes—and says, “Brad.”

“Marty,” Brad says again, and crawls onto the bed, bumping up against Marty and curling up with his head in Marty’s lap. “Marty. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“You didn’t call me back.” Marty puts his book down and starts running his fingers through Brad’s hair.

Brad presses his face against Marty’s leg. “I know. I’m sorry. Things got. You know.”

“I know,” Marty agrees. “Are you drunk?”

Brad shakes his head. “Not anymore,” he says. “I’ve been. Coasting.”

“Just tired, then,” says Marty. Brad think he must be smiling. “You should sleep.”

Brad wants to sleep more than almost anything. “But you’re here,” he protests. “I want to see you.”

“I won’t go anywhere,” Marty promises, smoothing the hair back from Brad’s forehead, and then it’s okay for Brad to close his eyes and stop being conscious.

When he wakes up a few hours later to pee, Marty is asleep, pressed up against Brad’s side, hand curled loosely around his folded glasses. Brad gets up slowly, careful not to wake Marty, and then trips and almost falls as soon as he stands up. Marty’s still fast asleep when Brad gets back from the bathroom, his hand splayed on the bed where Brad’s body had been. Brad picks up the glasses and puts them on the table, then stands and watches him for a few minutes, thinking that this is a new thing, another new thing to deal with, and how is Marty the steadiest thing in his life when they’re always having to change?

Brad’s only barely awake enough to formulate serious questions, definitely not enough to answer them, so he lies down again, pulls Marty’s arm around him, and falls asleep to Marty’s smell and Marty’s warmth and the sound of Marty’s breathing.

When he surfaces again, Marty is awake, watching him. The sunlight streaming through the windows has an early morning quality. Brad reaches out to touch Marty’s arm. He’s wearing a t-shirt now, and shorts, and he smells like he’s showered. Brad should have called him, still can’t quite believe he didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” says Brad, his voice still rough with sleep. “I kind of wasn’t thinking about anything.”

“I know,” says Marty. “I remember.”

Brad closes his eyes for a second. He’s not sure why that hurts so much, or why he wants Marty to be more upset. He squeezes Marty’s arm and hauls himself upright, taking stock of his sore muscles and that increasingly familiar end-of-season creaky feeling. “I’m gonna…” he says vaguely, and wanders into the bathroom. 

He stays in the shower for a long time, letting the hot water melt away some of the aches and pains and trying to pick up the threads of his life that he’d dropped during the playoffs. Everything that isn’t playoffs feels like it happened a very long time ago—the way it does every year, but more so. 

When he gets out of the shower, Marty’s not in the bedroom, so Brad puts on a pair of shorts and follows the smell of toast to the kitchen, where Marty is putting together an elaborate—for him—breakfast of fruit and toast and eggs. Marty must have gone shopping before Brad came home. Brad’s been staying in hotels for so long that nothing left in the fridge would have been any good to eat. 

He’s scrambling the eggs in butter, because if there’s a time of year to indulge, this is it. Brad smiles. He’s not always sure whether Marty thinks there is a time of year to indulge. He steps up behind Marty and rests his hands on Marty’s hips, chin on his shoulder. “That smells good,” he says.

“Of course it smells good,” says Marty. “It’s butter.” But his voice is warm, and once he slides the eggs out of the pan onto two plates, he turns around and puts his arms around Brad. and kisses him with a level of intensity that Brad didn’t expect, but that he likes a lot. 

“Missed you, too,” he murmurs when Marty moves from Brad’s mouth to kiss his nose and the bags under his eyes and the angle of his jaw. “Let me look at you.” 

Marty looks defensive under scrutiny, but that’s something he usually saves for other people, and Brad wonders with a pang if that’s his fault, if he missed one too many calls and killed some part of Marty’s comfort in his presence.

There’s more, though. Marty didn’t look this tired last time Brad saw him, and his face looks thin, and older. Brad presses his thumb to the wrinkles between Marty’s eyebrows. Marty smiles when he realizes what Brad is doing. “They come back,” he warns.

“So I’ll keep smoothing them away,” says Brad. He wonders how long it will be, what the lines on Marty’s face will look like by the time Brad can be there to smooth away the wrinkles all the time. He swallows. “Marty, what’s wrong? Is it just being here, the playoffs?”

Marty meets his eyes, shrugs and smiles. “The eggs are going to get cold.”

Brad lets Marty pull him over to the table, but he watches Marty as he eats, and he doesn’t like what he sees. “What’s wrong, Marty?” he asks again.

Marty shrugs. “Long season,” he says, which doesn’t really mean anything. “And I missed you.”

“And?” Brad prompts, because that’s not all of it. Missing each other is too normal to be weighing on Marty’s mind. “Is it…” he hesitates. “Contract stuff?”

Marty gets up and comes around to Brad’s side of the table, shoves the table just enough out of the way that he can squeeze into Brad’s lap. It’s a distraction tactic, Brad knows that, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to work. He grabs Marty’s ass with both hands and pulls him in closer.

“Fuck, I missed you so much,” says Brad. They do okay, apart. They talk a lot. But there’s no substitute for being able to touch Marty, so much so that no matter how well he thinks he remembers the feeling, it always surprises him.

The chair isn’t big enough for this—or, Brad’s beginning to think, sturdy enough. So when Marty murmurs “I want to fuck you; I was thinking about it on the plane,” Brad muffles his involuntary moan against Marty’s shoulder and says, “Bedroom, come on, it’s been so long.”

Marty is a little rough with him, barely enough to merit the word. It’s all impatience, pushing Brad around instead of telling him where to go and what to do, and Brad loves Marty’s impatience more than almost anything. He gets sloppy with the lube, digs his fingers into Brad’s thighs, pushes a second finger into him before Brad’s really ready for it, but it’s good—when it hurts a little, Brad mostly just registers it as more.  
Marty’s never been that into prepping Brad, or fingering him for its own sake—it’s a means to an end, and the more he wants to get his dick into Brad, the more perfunctory about this he is. He wants it a lot now, and Brad has to slow him down, hold him back with a hand on his shoulder after Marty gets the head of his dick inside him. It’s like it’s ten years ago and they’re still figuring out how to do this, only Brad knows more now about what he can and can’t take. 

He tells Marty when to push further and when to stop, feeling totally in control, like he’s the one stretching himself open, except that he’s using Marty’s dick to do it, instead of his own fingers. Every once in a while Brad thinks about asking Marty if he wants to try this the other way around—they've done that a few times, and it's been good—but every time he ends up wanting Marty inside him so badly that he doesn’t even want to bring it up, just in case Marty actually wants to take him up on the offer.

“Turn over,” says Brad, and Marty does it without a word, so Brad knows that it isn’t just him, that Marty feels like he’s running the show now, too. Brad loves the way Marty always knows what he wants, loves being guided by Marty’s gravitational pull, but this is good, too. Marty looks up at him, desperate, while Brad carefully lowers himself onto Marty’s dick. Brad gives himself up to it, letting his head fall back, making no attempt to stop the high-pitched, breathy noises he’s making. He feels like he’s just using Marty’s dick, like the fact that it’s Marty’s matters less than its heat and its girth. Marty’s face, when he looks down again, is another thing that seems designed to give him pleasure—the familiar lines of it, and Marty’s expression, looking up at Brad like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen. Marty’s patient now, like he never is, resting his palms on Brad’s thighs and watching, flushed and breathless, as Brad rides him.

It’s not like Marty ever ignores what Brad wants in bed, but he doesn’t usually make it all about Brad like he is now, keeping still, stroking his dick slowly—giving Brad just what he needs to get himself off, and no more. After, Marty rolls him over and fucks him into the mattress while Brad is still loose and hazy from his orgasm. It doesn’t feel good, exactly—Brad is too sensitive still—but it feels like more, again, and right now more is all Brad wants from Marty.

"You can't go back to sleep," says Brad afterwards. "Come on, we just got up." He coaxes Marty into the shower with him because they both need to clean up and it's more efficient. But it isn't not about the fact that Brad doesn't want to let go of Marty yet, needs to keep touching him. 

He doesn't mean to bring up the future. Marty obviously doesn't want to talk about it, and they have plenty of time before either of them needs to make any decisions. Before they have any decisions to make, even. But then Marty dries his hair with a towel, fluffing it up like feathers on a baby bird, and Brad doesn't know how to contain what he feels, so he blurts out, "you know, I'll go anywhere with you, if you ask me."

Marty looks up, startled. 

"I'm sorry," says Brad. "I didn't mean--but you know I would. Whatever you want to do."

Marty reaches out to touch him, his fingers resting lightly on Brad's cheek. "I know," he says. "So I have to make sure not to ask you to do anything you wouldn't like." Then he turns around and walks out of the room. Brad's known for years that Marty seesaws back and forth between selfishness and generosity, but somehow it always catches him by surprise.

 

It's a few days later, after the parade and everything, that Marty brings it up. He's been lying low, avoiding the possibility of getting photographed at any of the celebrations. Brad passed on some local golf course recommendations from Tazer, but he's pretty sure Marty only went to one of them.

Marty interrupts him in the middle of a story about a locker room prank to say, "You like them, don't you? You like it here."

It's a totally reasonable question, even if the answer feels like a betrayal. "I do, yeah," says Brad. "They're--it's a different room, different from the other ones I've been in. Like, they're all basically nice guys, but when they're assholes, they kind of...feed off of each other." He shrugs, smiling helplessly. "I'm not really part of that, but it's fun to be around."

"That's good," says Marty, sounding unenthusiastic about it. After a moment he adds, "You'd still rather be in New York, right?"

"Of course," says Brad. "And if we can both--"

"I'm only there because you lured me there," Marty interrupts.

"No I didn't," Brad protests. "What do you mean? How did I lure you there?"

Marty rests his chin on his arm. "Well, you were there," he says, and Brad doesn't know whether Marty is amending his previous statement or explaining it, but he sits down next to him and puts his arm around him.

"You and me in New York," says Brad. "Eventually. That's the plan."

Marty turns towards him, resting his head against Brad's shoulder, so Brad can't see his face when he says, "Brad, they don't want me back."

Brad goes still, trying not to tense up. "The Rangers?" he asks. "At all?

"That's what it looks like," says Marty.

"Even--even if we went to them together, if we both went cheap?"

"It's not just a cap thing," says Marty. "They don't want me back, Brad." He sounds--not resigned, but calm. Like he's been living with this for a while.

Brad hasn't had a chance to see Marty play much this season, but even if he's had a tough year...Brad has a hard time imagining why anyone who could have Marty in any capacity wouldn't want him.

"That's..." He doesn't know why he's started to talk when he doesn't know what to say. "How could they not want you?" It comes out different from how he thought it would, soft and plaintive.

Marty shrugs. "You and me, we both had to step it up this year, earn our next contracts. You did it, I didn't."

"I know it wasn't your best year," says Brad. "But you were still good. You're always good."

"Not good enough."

Brad bites his lip, and he knows this doesn't mean anything, but he says it anyway. "But..you're you."

Marty shifts against him, and Brad wishes he could see his face and is glad he can't. "That doesn't mean anything," he says. "You've got to keep going, you know? Or not keep going."

Brad swallows hard. It's so easy for him to get back to that place where he was when he met Marty, impressed by everything Marty did and always wanting more of him--more space in his house, more ice time together, more of Marty's hand casually resting on Brad's arm. Really, he's hardly ever not been in that place.

"I have a hard time understanding anyone not wanting you," he says finally.

"I know," says Marty, putting his arm around Brad's waist and twining their fingers together. "And it helps." He's quiet for a moment, and then he adds, "It's not like the Rangers are the only option. It's not a big deal."

Brad squeezes his hand. "Anywhere you want to go," he says. "I meant it."

"I know," says Marty. "But if we're both playing--we're probably going to do it in different places, and that's not new, that's exactly the same."

"I know," says Brad. "I'm tired of it."

That’s the same, too, and someday they’re going to stop running around in circles, but every time Brad thinks it’s finally going to happen and it doesn’t, it hurts worse.

“There’s also—“ Marty cuts himself off, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant, and pauses for so long that Brad isn’t expecting him to continue at all.

"Maybe we won't both be playing," he says, finally. Brad looks at him blankly.

“I don’t have to play,” says Marty. “It’s never going to be as good as it’s been.”

Brad opens his mouth and then closes it. “You can’t—“ He stops and tries again. “I mean, you can, but.” He swallows hard, but the lump in his throat is still there. He stands up, disentangling himself from Marty. When he leaves the room, Marty doesn’t try to stop him.

Marty is his boyfriend. They’ve been together for years. He doesn’t know anyone else as well as he knows Marty. But when he thinks about Marty not playing--his brain keeps a healthy distance from the word "retirement"--he doesn't think of his Marty having no obligations that keep him from being where Brad is. He thinks of Martin St. Louis, future Hall of Famer, not playing hockey. Not being on a team. Not handling awed rookies in training camp with endless patience and good humor. It turns out that there’s even more of the old hero worship left than he thought.

They go out for dinner later, and as they’re heading out the door, Brad says, “Sorry about before,” and Marty says, “It’s fine,” and everything’s back to normal. Except that a part of Brad's brain has started to think about it, about what it would be like. It's different, and it's scary. He's always looked ahead to a point when both of them will be retired, but he's always skipped over the event itself. He's never thought about how little he wants it to happen for each of them individually. 

"You don't have to think about it," Marty whispers in his ear late at night. "It's just a maybe. I don't know."

"Does it matter what I think about it?" Brad asks. It's not bitter; he just wants to know. 

Marty shrugs, a faint movement in the dark. "If I play? Of course. If I don't?" he pauses for an interminable twenty seconds. "That one is just me."

Brad shakes his head. "But you can't--I can't believe you really want that. To not play."

"I don't know if I want the other thing enough," he says. "Anymore. Or enough. I have to figure it out."

"Okay, says Brad.

"Go to sleep," says Marty, and he does.

 

Brad doesn't bring it up again. He should. He's getting interest from a few different teams--enough that he's feeling pretty good about himself--but he can't make a decision on anything, can't even narrow it down until he knows what Marty is going to do. Teams he would avoid on his own would sound a lot more appealing if Marty was there too. But he also doesn't want to ask Marty, not if he's still not sure whether he even wants to play. Brad wants Marty to keep playing so fiercely that he's afraid he could actually talk him into it.

It's a tricky thing, being tied to another person like this. Every time Brad thinks he has a handle on it, he realizes there's something else, another potential pitfall. He's still careful of Marty. He still wants to be. The couples he knows who have been together as long as he and Marty have always seem so settled, but lately he's wondered whether they really are. He's not so young that the idea that he and Marty are different or special holds any appeal. Maybe people never really settle all the way into anything. He's sure, at least, that if he and Marty never sort out all of their issues, he'll never manage it with anyone else.

So he waits, even when his agent tries to sound him out for team preferences. And a couple of days before free agency begins, Marty looks up from his dinner and says, "You'll go to whoever you want to go to, right? You won't worry about me?"

"If that's what you want," says Brad. "But..."

"I don't know yet," says Marty. "I don't know when I'll know."

That makes the decision easier and harder, because if Brad doesn't know what Marty wants, he's going to guess. 

He signs with Detroit. He can't imagine anyone--any hockey player--saying no, the Wings aren't good enough. And then he waits.

They've split up for a couple of weeks, Brad in PEI and Marty in Quebec, and Brad doesn't even call Marty to tell him. The hockey grapevine will be just as fast, and he knows Marty won't care how he hears. But in the same way, he knows Marty will tell him when he's made a decision.

Marty calls late in the afternoon. Brad grabs a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge and goes out to sit on the porch. "Tell me," he says.

Marty doesn't say anything.

Brad sighs. "You're doing it."

"Yes."

"Hanging up your skates." He's trying out the phrase, seeing how it sounds. It sounds wrong.

"Sure," says Marty.

Brad waits for Marty to say something else, which is stupid. He knows Marty's waiting for him. He swallows.

"Congratulations," he says. "You've had a fucking amazing career. And you've deserved all of it. And more." And that doesn't convey the full extent of it, so he adds, "And I love you." He'd be glad Marty isn't here to see the tears in his eyes if he didn't think Marty knew they were there anyway.

"I love you, too," says Marty, and now that he's stringing a few words together, Brad can hear how far from calm he is. "I know you don't like it, but--"

"It's not that," says Brad. "I want you to do what's right for you. I do."

"I know," says Marty, but Brad doesn't think he gets it.

"It's just hard," he says, "to see your favorite player retire."

" _Brad_ ," says Marty.

"I mean it."

"I know."

They both fall silent for a minute, and then Marty says, "I did talk to a few teams."

"Anyone good?" Brad asks, even though it doesn't matter anymore.

"Yes," says Marty.

"Then--"

"I was waiting for someone to convince me," says Marty. "I wanted them to."

Brad waits a moment to gauge whether he wants to say what he's going to say. "I wanted to. I didn't even care where."

"I know," says Marty. He pauses. "I think I'm glad you didn't try." 

"You think?"

Brad can almost hear Marty shrug over the phone. "Ask me again in about four months."

 

After that, the announcement itself is an anticlimax. Marty goes to New York for a press conference and sticks around to do some stuff for the Rangers organization, show that he wants to maintain his ties to the team. He's getting involved with a couple of local kids teams, and he sounds excited when he talks to Brad about them on the phone. Marty loves kids. That's something else that they should start to talk about, if Marty's not playing anymore.

Brad flies down to New York in late July. The apartment is getting cluttered with just Marty living there, and Brad has a vivid flashback to the first time he brought Marty to this apartment, and how much he wanted him here for more than one night at a time. Back then that was an end goal. He didn't really think about anything happening on the other side of it. He does some reorganizing, just to help him feel like it's his again, and drags Marty out to all his favorite restaurants and a couple of new ones he's been wanting to try. One night he looks online to see what similar apartments are selling for. Maybe they won't stay here. It doesn't make as much sense as it did, and they haven't talked about it, but he doesn't really see Marty picking up and moving to Detroit for the season.

They keep not talking about it while Marty wraps up his responsibilities in the city and they relocate to the Hamptons for the rest of the summer. Brad knows it's important to communicate--he thought he'd learned it after he spent a couple of years trying to hide from Marty exactly how much he wanted him, but he's had to learn it a couple of times over since then. But he and Marty have the luxury of not talking about things, when they need it, and for now they can afford to leave Marty's end-of-summer plans up in the air. 

Vinny comes out for a week in August, and Brad realizes consciously what he's known in the back of his mind for a while--that Vinny's had a rough year, much rougher than Marty's. He takes Vinny outdoors as much as he can, spending even more time on the beach than he normally does when he's out here. Marty makes him feel younger sometimes, but always in relation to him. Vinny just makes him feel young, and silly and free from responsibility in a way no one else does, and Brad hopes that it works in the other direction, too. He thinks it does.

Vinny spends time with Marty, too, just the two of them. When Brad sees them talking, they look serious, and he tries not to interrupt. Mostly the three of them hang out together, though. Brad drags Marty and Vinny with him to fully a quarter of the vineyards on Long Island, stopping at farmstands on the way back to pick up food. They do dinner outside on the grill almost every night, bare feet soaking up the lingering warmth in the bricks of the patio, dragging out one bottle of wine as long as they can. Vinny stays almost twice as long as he meant to, but Brad is still sorry to see him go when he leaves. He doesn't know anyone else who can spend so much time with him and Marty without ever seeming like a third wheel.

Someone in the Red Wings front office organizes an apartment for him. He and Marty look through the pictures together on his iPad, Marty's chin resting on Brad's shoulder. 

"What do you think?" he asks, because if Marty has any serious objections, he's not going to take the place, even if it means an extra trip to Detroit before September. 

"It's okay," says Marty. "Nicer than your place in Chicago."

"It's less modern."

"It looks more like you," says Marty. Brad looks at him curiously. 

Marty shakes his head. "The light, maybe. Big rooms, but not too open. I don't know." He reaches for the screen, swiping through the pictures again. "It's an apartment, but it looks like a house. Looks like it feels like a house."

"It's just one season," says Brad. Somehow Marty's approval is making him a little uncomfortable. "It doesn't really matter."

"You have to live there," says Marty. "You should like it."

"Do _you_ like it?"

"It's fine," says Marty. "If that's where you are, that's where I'll go." He pauses. "Maybe you're right, it doesn't really matter."

"I might care more about what you think of it that what I do," Brad admits. 

"Well, you're pickier than I am," says Marty. "But I'll promise not to hate it like the Chicago place." Then he kisses Brad's ear.

Brad puts the iPad down and twists, pulling Marty down with him. "Are you going to keep your hair shorter now that you're not playing?" he asks, irrelevantly.

"I don't know, why would I?" asks Marty.

Brad runs his hand over Marty's head. He cut his hair again last week, and it still feels prickly against Brad's palm.

"You always forget, during the season," he says. "Or you don't think you have time to get it cut. I don't know."

"You can tell me when you want me to cut it," says Marty, and lowers his head to kiss Brad.

It's a good summer.

 

Marty doesn't come to Detroit until a few days before the start of the season. Training camp is exhausting, and he wouldn't have that much time for Marty anyway. Also, as Marty points out a couple of times, he should be getting to know his new team. He's used to this now, though, joining new teams. He slips into relationships with his teammates more easily, and knows he'll slip out of them easily, too.

He still hasn't unpacked very much, so when Marty arrives, he puts him to work. First unpacking--Marty is pretty haphazard about packing and unpacking, but he'll hold himself to a higher standard if Brad asks nicely--and then moving furniture. The apartment came furnished, but the layout is a little weird and he's hated the couch from the moment he laid eyes on it, with a fervor he can't really explain. They carry it into the guest room, where it's a snug fit, but that doesn't seem like enough, so Brad throws a sheet over it. Marty helps, once he stops laughing.

They drive to Ikea to look for a new couch, because Brad doesn't want to spend too much on something that he's probably going to end up giving away at the end of the season. 

"Do you think maybe one of the rookies will want the couch?" he asks suddenly. Marty just laughs at him. Brad punches him in the arm.

It isn't until they're getting out of the car in the Ikea parking lot that he realizes that this is a very public thing that they're doing. He pauses and looks over the car at Marty. "If people recognize us," he begins, and isn't sure how to continue.

"Then we'll have to take some pictures?" says Marty. He leans against the car. "If you want me to stay out here, I will."

"I don't," says Brad. "I just..."

"I'm visiting you," says Marty. His eyes are serious. "I'm helping you pick out a couch. It doesn't necessarily look like anything else."

"Right," says Brad. "Of course." This is something else they should talk about, probably. Another subject that's different now that Marty isn't playing. Of course it doesn't have to look like anything else, but it _is_ something else, and he can't help feeling like someone's going to look at them and _know_ , and he's beginning to feel a little panicky because he doesn't know what happens after that.

"Brad," says Marty. "Get back in the car."

"I need a couch," Brad protests.

"Yes, I know, the one you have is completely unacceptable," says Marty. "Just for a minute."

Brad gets back in the car and lets Marty hold his hand and lean against his shoulder, and it helps, some. "Sorry," he says. "I don't really know what that was about."

"Don't worry about it," says Marty. 

They get out of the car again, but this time Brad feels tentative and Marty looks subdued. They wander through Ikea looking at the furniture, and sometimes Marty says, "what about that?" and Brad says, "it's okay," but it's not fun. Brad thought this trip was going to be fun.

Brad looks up and catches Marty watching him, looking worried, like he knows something is wrong and doesn't know how to fix it. Brad smiles faintly and shrugs. He's not having any easier a time figuring himself out that Marty is.Neither of them see the little girl approaching until she's a couple of feet from Marty, looking up at him hopefully. 

"Excuse me," she says, and glances back for approval at a woman behind her--her mom, presumably--who nods and smiles encouragingly. "Are you Marty St. Louis?" she asks.

"I am." He smiles and crouches down next to her. She's little--ten, at most, and glowing with excitement. Marty's not much different. He likes kids so much that Brad has a hard time looking at him with them sometimes.

"You're my favorite," she says. "Except not anymore, 'cause my dad says you can't be 'cause you left."

Marty catches Brad's eye and his lips quirk up. "You're from Tampa?"

She shakes her head. "St. Petersburg. But we have to stay here now, dad says."

Marty tilts his head to the side. "I don't think you can be mad at me for leaving Florida when you left, too."

"I'm not," she says. "You just have to be my secret favorite now, instead of my regular favorite. 'Cause of Dad."

"Okay," he says. "I don't mind being a secret." He glances up at Brad again and Brad feels himself flush.

"You know there's a hockey team here, too, right?" says Marty.

The girl nods. "Dad says we can like the Red Wings because we live here now, but the Bolts are still the best." 

"That sounds fair," says Marty. He's wearing a serious expression, but his eyes are bright and Brad can tell he's enjoying himself hugely. "You know, my friend Brad just moved here, too, and he's going to play for the Red Wings."

"Really?" She looks at Brad for the first time, and then back at Marty.

"Really. He used to play in Tampa, too, but you were very little then, so it's okay if you don't remember."

Marty beckons Brad over and formally introduces him to the girl, with the help of her mom. Then they take a couple of pictures and both he and Marty sign things, and then the girl and her mom head off in the direction of the food court. 

Brad squeezes Marty's shoulder. "That was adorable," he says.

"She's really cute," Marty agrees.

"Not just her," says Brad. He sits down. "This feels good. I should get this one."

Marty makes a face. "It's very ugly."

Brad looks down. He's sitting on orange and yellow plaid, and yes, it's terrible. "It'll grow on you," he says.

 

"How do you want this to go?" Marty asks later, over dinner, and it's a subject change, but Brad knows exactly what he's talking about.

"I haven't really been thinking about it," he says. He's stopped looking into the future since Marty decided to retire

Marty looks down at his plate. "I don't have to visit much. Even just a few weekends would be more than we had last year."

"No, I want you to visit," says Brad."I--when do I ever not want you around?"

Marty shrugs. "The more time we spend together now, the more things will look like...what they are. If you want to slow that down..."

"I don't know what I want," says Brad. "I don't know what's going to happen."

"Well, neither do I," says Marty. "And if you ever knew how to look into the future, it's news to me."

Brad smiles, or tries to. "Yeah, I don't know why...I'm just scared. I don't know."

"We're going to be fine," says Marty. "You know that, right? Whatever happens."

"Yeah." He does. It's the "whatever happens" part that he can't wrap his head around. 

"It's your call," says Marty.

"It's always my call," says Brad, quickly, before he knows he's going to. They look at each other.

"I just want to live my life," says Marty, slowly. "With you. I'm okay keeping things quiet for a while longer, but I don't want to be in the closet forever."

Brad stays quiet. Marty does always let him do things how he wants--pushes him to, even. If Marty's actually going to talk about what he wants, Brad isn't going to interrupt.

"When my mom died..." Marty frowns. "I wanted you there. I wanted to take you home with me, but I also--I leaned on you, and I wanted everyone to be able to see that that's what I was doing, that's how I was dealing with it."

Brad reaches across the table and takes Marty's hand. Marty looks down at his plate. "I want kids," he says. "I want them to be both of ours." It occurs to Brad for the first time that Marty might not know he knows that.

"Of course," he says, answering the question Marty isn't asking. "Marty, I--I know that. I want that, too. Of course."

Marty relaxes, almost imperceptibly. "Okay," he says. "But for that...for kids, we need to be out."

"Yeah." Brad gets up to take their plates to the sink, giving him a minute to think. "I'm not scared of being out," he says, finally. "I'm scared of getting there."

"Okay," says Marty. "That's fine." He comes up behind Brad and puts his hands on Brad's shoulders. "This is a control thing, then?"

Brad turns around. "What do you mean?"

Marty looks at him for a moment. "You don't like the uncertainty," he says, slowly. "You don't want to make a big thing out of it, but you also don't want to just let it happen, because you have no control."

When he puts it like that, it does seem obvious. He wraps his arms around Marty and says, "Sometimes I think you're a lot smarter than I am."

"Only sometimes?" says Marty. He kisses Brad softly. "You know that's not true."

Brad shrugs. He knows Marty thinks he's smart, but he's never really sure why. He kisses Marty back. "Come to bed."

"You don't want to clean up?" Marty asks.

Brad shakes his head. "It'll be fine."

 

Marty's right that it's a control thing, and he's right that the two of them are going to be fine, but that doesn't mean Brad's not going to keep being scared for a while.

It's getting cooler out now, especially at night, and they leave the window open and cocoon themselves in a pile of blankets.

"It's okay if you don't want to think about it," says Marty. "You don't have to."

"I do, though," says Brad. It's important. Nothing else is as important.

"You deserve a break," says Marty. He's gotten very quiet, which means he's close to falling asleep. Brad is, too. "You just won a...a really big thing. Two-time Stanley Cup winner Brad Richards. Bradley Glenn Richards."

Brad smiles and presses his nose into the curve of Marty's neck. "I thought the Cup was going to be the biggest thing that happened to me this year," he mumbles, sleepily. "But it's not; it's you again. It's always you."

**Author's Note:**

> At this point I would feel weird about not titling something in this series from an Old 97s or Rhett Miller song, and this one was the only real choice.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uf2TH599QM


End file.
